No marketing, no traffic, no users
June 20, 2007
I think some people are interested in knowing how my sites are performing from my 28 Site Challenge. The challenge was to create one new website per day for the month of February. It seems such a long time ago now!
Not surprisingly performance is pretty dismal. If someone visits a site like jobseekchina and finds no jobs, they are unlikely to post their own company’s jobs. This is always the difficulty of starting a site like this. I have a couple of other job sites like dotjapan.com and jobsesl.com. I started dotJapan in September 2005. It has taken nearly two years now to get it to where it is today and last month it earned a grand total of $63 from Google ads. To be honest though, I don’t do much with the site at all.
The hotel mini sites I created get very little traffic, but they rank fairly well in Google and make a little bit of money. I think it could be possible to package them up and sell them to a company like asiarooms.com or hotels.com.
A few people have submitted links to affiliate-rank but most of the links seem to be a little spammy. My biggest success is my dating site Wealthy People Dating. Apart from the $25 I spent on StumbledUpon I haven’t done anything else to promote the site. I don’t have any ads on the site as yet, so I am defining “success” as people signing up to the site. I have had about 25 signups so far and 1555 people rating profiles. Again, it is hard to know if these are real people signing up or other dating companies trying to promote their own sites. The dating industry is extremely competitive. I started the site as a bit of joke, but if I can get a few more members I might put the site up for sale on Sitepoint.
Creating dozens of sites is crazy and totally unmanageable for one person, but I enjoy trying out different things. You are far better to concentrate on just one or two websites they are truly interested in. As I wrote the other day, I am going to test the waters by selling some of sites that I no longer want to maintain. I think it is fairly safe to conclude that unless you spend time marketing a site, getting links and getting people to actively use your site, it is going to go no where.
Having said that, if you have a site that is relying on users to generate the content, if you can the site to a stage where it appears to be active, you have a higher chance of new people signing up. A good example is my new Australia Forum. I am paying someone to help put some new posts up, but I have had a couple of “real” people sign up and are starting to use the site. Just a reminder, I am running a competition on the site and I haven’t had any great entries yet so there is still a good chance for someone to win by writing a decent entry.
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7 Responses to “No marketing, no traffic, no users”
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Maybe July should be based around promoting those 28 sites or something. A month of promotions at 3 hours a day should get you sites that are generating $10/month on average.. That might not be great results but it can get you somewhere. Plus having a wealth of sites is good for you to launch bigger sites with because they are already established with pr/trust/and other goodness.
I actually found this site while following a couple of links. I must say I am fascinated that you actually took a stab at it and ore important documented and followed-up for the readers of this site.
Thanks for the interesting post.
Greg
http://www.blueskybrothers.com
Our group of sites has been a strange experience…some have done well on their own while others have not done anything. We actually let several domains expire this year for ones we thought would do well, but never panned out. On the other hand, we have one site that I haven’t touched in over a year that brings in over $100 a month now (for clarity, that is an exception - most only bring in a few dollars a month). I’ve come to the conclusion that having about 3 - 5 sites that you’re interested in and can update regularly is probably the way to go - and definitely different types (a blog, a forum, an informational site, etc)
Oh my … I am new to blogging and this strikes fear in my bones. I am going to consentrate on just one site, work hard on it and hope for the best.
I totally agree that just having sites around is not going to make you money, unless you work hard at promoting them and putting valuable information for your sites community.
I have one site, which is consuming most of my time but it is making pretty decent money. If I can somehow manage 10 sites I that would be pretty good.
I agree that building up one or two niche sites is the best way to go. Write about your passions and you’ll do well.
Wow, 28 sites in one month is a daunting project. I was trying one site a week and found it to be a lot of work.
Impressive to say the least!